Lecture: Michelangelo Rediscovered: The Cleaning of Michelangelo's Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel
Speaker: Dr. Walter Persegati
The fourteen year cleaning project of Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel has been hailed as the conservation accomplishment of the century. he painstaking, delicate work by the Vatican Conservation Laboratory had started in 1980 with the cleaning of the Ceiling and was completed in
1994 with the unveiling of the Last Judgment. he Last Judgment's 400 figures have returned to life after lying for centuries under a blanket of soot. They have emerged from deep darkness. Color has returned to tunics and veils giving the huge fresco unsuspected flashes of light. rime, dirt, lampblack and glues were hiding Michelangelo's frescoes for centuries. A myth about the artist's unfamiliarity with colors or/and his voluntary veiling his frescoes in darkness was thus born. hile as a sculptor he had reached us in all his original power, as a painter he was betrayed by the grime of centuries and by the good intentioned restorers of the past. The cleaning has given Michelangelo, the colorist, justice at last.
Lecture Date: October 11th, 2002
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